


Through The Star Stones

by Ankaret



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - McCaffrey
Genre: Futurefic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:46:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/pseuds/Ankaret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future!fic.  Has Thread really been vanquished forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through The Star Stones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kastaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/gifts).



The two of them stood together in the misty dawn, looking at the Star Stones on the heights of Fort Weyr. Shimora leaned against Dallanth's side, her flying helmet dangling from one gloved hand. She was wearing a softsuit made from the Weavercraftmaster's new thermal fibres underneath her flying leathers, but she still shivered in the cold dawn.

The sun was rising, casting a cold diffused light through the mist. Was there another light there? A redder light, shining through the fog? Shimora couldn't tell. She rubbed her forearms vigorously with her gloved hands to try to forestall the cold.

"There's no visibility, Dallanth. Another day wasted."

Dallanth craned her golden head downwards, her faceted eyes swirling serenely. _The day is not wasted. We are to assist the skinny one with his cloud-seeding project. There will be rain in Telgar and Keroon and the harvest will be saved._

Shimora made a fist and rubbed her knuckles against the queen's brow-ridges. "What do you care about the harvest, dearest one? Dragons don't eat cereals, not that I've ever noticed."

_Wherries eat cereals and so do herdbeasts_, said Dallanth. _So there must be cereals, if I am to eat wherries. The skinny one explained it to me_.

"You talked to Masterfarmer Torkin?" Shimora was surprised. Dallanth was usually standoffish even with other riders, let alone holders and crafters. But then, perhaps she'd picked up on Shimora's own sneaking fondness for the tall, slender Masterfarmer with his narrow-boned head full of crazy ideas. "Well, next time you talk to him, tell him to find a way of getting rid of fog. What's the point of a Weathercraftsmaster who can't get rid of fog?"

_There is not a Weathercraftshall_, said Dallanth in puzzlement.

"Oh, I know! But since he came up with the idea of using dragons for that cloud-seeding project of his, people call him... Oh. Dallanth. Look." Her merry mood abruptly stifled, Shimora turned her head to look at the red glow creeping through the stones.

Dallanth craned her sinuous golden neck towards the red glow. A soft, angry crooning escaped her throat, a noise Shimora hadn't ever heard in all her twenty Turns of being partnered with the dragon, though the noise that Dallanth made when the weyrlings approached her eggs was something close. The great muscles in her haunches bunched and her wings flattened back, as if she intended to leap all the way to the Red Star itself.

_The Red Star comes! Thread comes! I must rise and fight Thread!_ Dallanth looked down at the tall Weyrwoman, her eyes whirling with distress. _You have no flamethrower! Where is the rest of the queens' wing? We must fight THREAD!_

"Hus-sh, dear one." Shimora leaned her head contritely against the great golden queen's side. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you here. I should have known it would distress you."

_But there will be Thread!_ Dallanth insisted.

"No, there won't. Never again." Shimora said sturdily.

_There will not be Thread?_ The dragon's voice in Shimora's head was almost childlike. _How will there not be Thread?_

"Do you remember when B'kor was telling the weyrlings tales of the Last Fall, and how Jaxima and Ruth travelled all the way to the Red Star to stifle the Thread in its egg? Ruth was a queen so pale a gold she was almost white, and Jaxima was the bravest Weyrwoman on Pern, and Lady Holder of five Holds into the bargain."

_B'kor should have been a harper and not a rider, and Lumoth will never fly me_, said Dallanth with disdain. _I wish that the skinny one had Impressed a bronze_.

Shimora had occasionally wished that herself. She shoved the stray thought to the back of her mind. What mattered now was consoling her dragon. She upbraided herself for forgetting, after all this time, how different human and dragon thought patterns were. The dragons were far more concrete and immediate in their thinking. Hadn't she told enough weyrlings that? And now she was forgetting it herself. It's the Red Star, she thought grimly. Even with no Thread to fall, it brings disruption.

_There will not be Thread?_ Dallanth insisted again.

"Not in our lifetime, dearest one. Not ever again." Shimora soothed her.

Dallanth lifted her head proudly and vaned her wings. They glimmered golden in the dawn light. The mist was starting to fade away. _But if it does fall_, she asserted, _we will be ready_.

"Yes," said Shimora. "We will."

_Then all is well,_ said Dallanth in tones of great satisfaction. _You are cold. We should go and bathe in the lake where it is warm. I need to stretch my muscles for today's flight_.

"You need your hide oiled, as well." Shimora checked her straps and swung herself up into the saddle. "We don't need to be here any more."

_We do not_, agreed Dallanth. _Today we will make rain_.


End file.
